Are you talking about the modern practice of supermarkets and shopping malls, or just the act of going out to purchase goods in general?

I am not the OP but I would be interested in knowing when and how did the modern supermarkets and the big malls phenomenon come about?

I know in the UK it was in the 18th century, in terms of shopping for goods. (e.g. not food and so on). It was around this time, as people were getting richer and the middle class was growing, and cities were growing as well, expanding, that shop display windows were invented and the practice of drawing people in to actively spend money and 'treat themselves' came in.

Before that the majority of people would buy what they needed and that would be it generally, except for the very rich. For two reasons; customers generally didn't have much surplus money and secondly, shop owners couldn't afford to buy surplus materials or produce surplus goods in the first place to try and push off at a higher price. So much was made-to-order in those days as well, of course.

I suspect the British Empire (and other empires at the time) making certain products cheaper, as well as the impacts of the industrial revolution in general, allowed shop owners greater flexibility to expand.

Of course, I imagine the culture of shopping in a certain form, being enticed to buy things in general - in terms of baked or food goods for example - is much older than that, as would be the practice of enticing the very wealthy to spend their money on frivolities.

So it depends what kind of 'shopping' you particularly meant.